
A phase 2 study of talazoparib found that it shrank tumors in breast cancer patients not previously indicated for the treatment. A drug approved to treat breast cancer patients with mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes may also benefit people who have other genetic mutations. Researchers at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern reported on October 17, 2022 in Nature Cancer that talazoparib successfully shrank the tumors of breast cancer patients with mutations in the PALB2 gene. Patients with this mutation would not have previously qualified for treatment with talazoparib, a type of cancer drug known as a PARP inhibitor. The open-access article is titled “A Phase II Study of Talazoparib Monotherapy in Patients with Wild-Type BRCA1 and BRCA2 with a Mutation in Other Homologous Recombination Genes.”